The Northwest Herald and the Chicago Sun-Times are reporting that a former nursing assistant has been jailed after he was caught on video poking holes in a resident with Alzheimer’s disease’s medication patch. The nursing assistant then licked the painkiller off his finger to administer the medication to himself. The 25-year-old male was charged with the crime of aggravated battery to an elderly person. This nursing home abuse occurred at the Fair Oaks Health Care Center in Crystal Lake, Illinois.

After the incident, the CNA was arrested and the nursing home fired him. He was caught after other nursing home staff members noticed that the 92-year-old victim’s patch had some discoloration. After this observation, the staff set up video surveillance in the woman’s room and this led to the CNA’s arrest. The victim’s family was notified of the incident.

The Crystal Lake Police Chief noted that it was quite desperate that the nursing assistant needed to drain Fentanyl from an elderly woman’s patch. The defendant allegedly would roll the woman on her side and poke holes in her mediation patch using a safety pin. He would then remove the Fentanyl, squeezing the patch four or five times to obtain the narcotic. In order to work as a nursing assistant in an Illinois nursing home, nursing homes must do a thorough background check on each prospective CNA. This is an important step to hiring nursing home employees, allowing the homes to screen applicants in order to help reduce the risk of nursing home abuse and neglect. This history must have no administrative finding of elder abuse, neglect or misappropriated property in Illinois. A certified nursing assistant may not begin working until they meet all training requirements.

Although these measures are put into place to protect residents, abuse and neglect still occur. In this situation, the nursing home staff acted appropriately when they suspected that someone was altering the resident’s painkiller patch. To read more about this incident of Illinois nursing home abuse, please click the link.

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